PCT Patent Application PCT/IL00/00276 of NDS Ltd., filed 16 May 2000, published in the English language as WO 01/35669, and corresponding unpublished U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/574,096 of Darshan, et al, describe a method for processing a data stream including receiving a transport stream (TS), storing at least a portion of the TS, the at least a portion of the TS having a beginning and including a plurality of TS packets, determining, from among the plurality of TS packets, at least one TS packet including a candidate access point, storing in an index store a byte offset of the candidate access point, and storing in the index store a plurality of indications of byte offset, each byte offset being associated with an arrival time of a received TS packet.
PCT Patent Application PCT/IL02/00534 of NDS Ltd., filed 30 Jun. 2002, published in the English language as WO 03/010970 and corresponding unpublished U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/479,373 of Darshan, et al, describes a method for accessing a desired point in time-synchronized data within a stream, the stream being associated with a desired point within a time-synchronized data stream, determining a stream access point, decoding the stream beginning at the stream access point, and assigning a time associated with the stream access point as a utilization time.
PCT Patent Application PCT/IL2005/000685, published as WO 2006/018827, filed 28 Jun. 2005, describes a method for providing access to operation information related to a digital signal, including providing a digital signal encoded, in accordance with a layered encoding scheme, in a plurality of layers, and extracting operation information from a first layer of encoding within the digital signal, and placing the extracted information in a second layer of encoding within the digital signal.
US Published patent application US 2004/258393 of Lin et al describes a method and system for performing a trick mode on a video signal containing a plurality of original pictures. The method includes the steps of receiving a trick mode command and selectively inserting at least one dummy predictive picture in the trick mode video signal using at least one prediction scheme among field-based prediction and frame-based prediction. In one arrangement, the selectively inserting step can include the step of selectively inserting at least a first dummy predictive picture in the video signal using field-based prediction and subsequent dummy predictive pictures in the trick mode video signal using frame-based prediction.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,009,229 to Kawamura describes an apparatus and method of recording coded picture data on a recording medium which operates to receive the picture data (e.g., a video data), code the picture data using intra-picture coding and/or predictive coding to provide one I-picture and one succeeding P-picture, generate positional information representing the positions of the I-picture and the P-picture relative to the I-picture, and record the I-picture, the P-picture, and the positional information on the recording medium. The coded picture data is reproduced from the recording medium in a special reproduction mode by selectively reading the data using the positional information.
European Patent EP 0787409 describes a consumer digital video cassette recorder which records an advanced television signal having an MPEG like signal format. The predictive nature of the MPEG like signal requires that additional I-frame data be generated and recorded together with a normal play speed data stream to facilitate non-standard speed, or trick play reproduction. Additional I-frame data streams are generated specifically for each replay speed and are written within recorded tracks to facilitate reproduction at the predetermined speed.
Adventures in Building the Stony Brook Video Server, by Vernick et al., Proceedings of ACM Multimedia '96, 199.6, describes the experiences and implementation details of building the Stony Brook Video Server (SBVS), an Ethernet-based server built in the Experimental Computer Systems Lab at Stony Brook. It employs only off-the-shelf PC components and is capable of guaranteeing the real-time delivery of digital video streams from the server's disk subsystem, through an Ethernet network, to an end user's display. The SBVS integrates a software-based disk array with a Real-Time Ethernet Protocol, RETHER, which guarantees the smooth delivery of multimedia data while allowing nonreal-time traffic to coexist on the same LAN. While outlining all of the design issues that must be addressed when building a LAN based video server, this paper focuses on three main design and implementation issues: 1) retrieval algorithms for reading multimedia files from a software-driven disk array for supporting normal playback, slow-motion playback, and rewind; 2) buffer management and organization; and, 3) client-side support for rewind of MPEG video streams. The paper also presents several unanticipated problems that arose when implementing the SBVS and their solutions.
A secure video processor, SVP, is described in detail at www.svpalliance.org.
Video-on-Demand (VOD) servers are capable of receiving video and re-encoding the received video on the fly, and/or reading multiple versions of the same video in order to send the video to a client enabled to play trick modes (for example in reverse, fast forward).
Video encoding and compression standards are well known in the art. Video encoding and compression standards believed to reflect the state of the art include:
ISO/IEC 13818-1:2000, MPEG-2 Systems Specification;
ISO/IEC 13818-2:2000, MPEG-2 Video Specification;
ISO/IEC 14496-2:1999 MPEG-4 Video Specification;
ISO/IEC 13818-1:2000, FDAM3 MPEG-2 Systems Specification Amendment 3, Transport of AVC Video Data over ITU-T Rec H.222.0/ISO/IEC 13818-1 Streams;
ISO/IEC 14496-10:2003 MPEG-4 AVC Video Specification; and
SMPTE 241 Proposed SMPTE Standard for Television: VC-1 Compressed Video Bitstream Format aid Decoding Process.
The disclosures of all references mentioned above and throughout the present specification, as well as the disclosures of all references mentioned in those references, are hereby incorporated herein by reference.